Sunday, April 20, 2008

Three cheers for the Intermediair

Yes, the good things in life are for free. Like the magazine Intermediair. It is free because it solely lives on advertisement space with vacancies for higher educated people. And although it's free it still has quality. The journalists over there have something I like: they don't let themselves get carried away by the "fast news". And by "fast news", I mean news that isn't interpreted, but only reported. I associate that with copy-paste articles from news agencies, hypes and interviews with "the man on the street".

Take for example the Tibet-issue that's in the news lately. You could call it a hype, but that's not the right word for it, because Tibet deserves to be in the picture. The only thing that bothers me is the good-bad, white-black, German-allies kind of reporting. The Intermediair didn't spend much words on it, but it pointed to some not that known facts:

- Tibet was between 1720 and 1911 an autonomous region of China. The Dalai Lama was relatively free in his decisions, but every Dalai Lama had to be approved by the Chinese government- After the fall of the last Chinese emperor, Tibet one-sidedly declared itself independent.- The Dalai Lama ruled as a god slash king. Most Tibetans were more or less owned by one of the many monasteries in the country.

Bet you didn't hear that in the media, right? Does it shed at least a bit of a different light on the Tibetan issue? With that being said: I still think the Tibetans should like any group of people have the right of autonomy. But please, don't make the Dalai Lama a saint or the Chinese devils. Life is more sophisticated than that.